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DILUTED SAN DIEGO WEATHER COVERAGE

sdwulfdawg

sdwulfdawg

We have to face the fact that San Diego does not have a lot of "weather," but I still find shocking NBC Universal's announcement made in the Union-Tribune that beginning on Monday, San Diego weather forecasts on KNSD/Channel 39 will originate from Los Angeles....not San Diego.

The weather reports will now be done by Fritz Coleman and produced at NBC4 in Los Angeles. This puts longtime KNSD weather reporter Pat Brown, who has been with the station for eight years "on the beach." According to KNSD, Coleman will do his forecasts from a “specially equipped set” at the NBC4 studios. His forecasts will air weekdays during the 4, 5, 6 and 11 p.m. newscasts.

It is obvious to me that NBC Universal is going to be the next big media company to end up collapsing/imploding like a deck of cheap playing cards as what is happening with ClearChannel. They are reducing KNSD to just be a broadcast source to play TV commercials in order to buoy the NBC's/General Electric corporate coffers and NOT be a true local team player. I don't see really at this point to see why they even will bother to do local news -- just produce it from a soundstage in LA.
 
We are somewhat in the same situation up here in Northern California at NBC Bay Area. Pablo Pereira does the weekend weather from the NBC Los Angeles station. What really puzzles me is NBC Bay Area just hired Jeff Ranieri from New York to do the weekday weather. I am wondering if Jeff's roll may very well be expanded to do all of the West Coast weather from the Bay Area?
 
When the "NBC Bay Area" (KNTV) parted ways with John Farley, their last chief meteorologist, it was rumored that this was their plan for the Bay Area- but I guess not because they have a new local weather reporter - at least weekdays.

I think it's a bit of a leap to say that NBC is "imploding," or has anything near the problems of Clear Channel. CC took on a ton of debt when they bought AM/FM, and purchased a lot of radio stations when they were a lot more valuable then they are today. I don't know much about NBC/U's finances, but I'm sure they're in better shape than that.

All media companies are cutting costs, and this seems like a reasonable move to me. As you stated, San Diego doesn't have much "weather" to speak of, and most major weather information comes from satellites now anyway. I'm sure that NBC would say that in any San Diego weather emergency (the occasional winter flood to the east in the desert, perhaps?), they will be able to utilize the "superior resources" of KNBC. And they can always send a general assignment reporter to cover the weather event, while Coleman gives the details from LA.

Of course, I live in foggy San Francisco, so I'm just jealous...
 
Newschannel4SF said:
We are somewhat in the same situation up here in Northern California at NBC Bay Area. Pablo Pereira does the weekend weather from the NBC Los Angeles station. What really puzzles me is NBC Bay Area just hired Jeff Ranieri from New York to do the weekday weather. I am wondering if Jeff's roll may very well be expanded to do all of the West Coast weather from the Bay Area?
Click to expand...


Hmmmm...really? I don't watch KNTV's news much, but I had it on the other night, and could have sworn that the weather guy was behind the desk right next to Sinkovitz on the set while they were talking. I'll have to check again.
 
Same thing here in Palm Springs on NBC KMIR. The weather is now done out of a Journal broadcasting hub in Las Vegas. At least the guy who does it is a former KMIR guy so the average person actually thinks he is here, and of course P.S. weather is "hot for the next 3 months" anyway.
 
Lkeller said:
I think it's a bit of a leap to say that NBC is "imploding," or has anything near the problems of Clear Channel. CC took on a ton of debt when they bought AM/FM, and purchased a lot of radio stations when they were a lot more valuable then they are today. I don't know much about NBC/U's finances, but I'm sure they're in better shape than that.
Click to expand...

GE stock is doing terrible and MSNBC is both getting terrible ratings and gushing red ink....not to mention that NBC has been on an insatiable spree of buying cable TV networks which now all run informercials because they can count on some revenue vs. selling spots. NBC TV itself is in the ratings gutter.

GE/NBC Universal is facing the same trouble as CC.... They have tried to expand and expand and expand to the point that they have gone broke and are not getting the revenues that one would expect from such an expansion, so now they are in a mode trying to cut expenses. Local TV audiences like seeing their own just as "localism" is important to terrestrial radio. They lose interest when they know that they are being served up with broadcast news and features which are like MRE (Meals rejected by Ethiopians) and will go where they can see and experience the on set personalities they have gotten used to.

This is an open opportunity for the other stations in the market to suckerpunch NBC 7/39 and point out how their stations have local people covering local news and weather conditions...not to mention the ambivalence a lot of San Diegans have towards their northern sister, Los Angeles.
 
sdwulfdawg said:
Lkeller said:
I think it's a bit of a leap to say that NBC is "imploding," or has anything near the problems of Clear Channel. CC took on a ton of debt when they bought AM/FM, and purchased a lot of radio stations when they were a lot more valuable then they are today. I don't know much about NBC/U's finances, but I'm sure they're in better shape than that.
Click to expand...

GE stock is doing terrible and MSNBC is both getting terrible ratings and gushing red ink....not to mention that NBC has been on an insatiable spree of buying cable TV networks which now all run informercials because they can count on some revenue vs. selling spots. NBC TV itself is in the ratings gutter.

GE/NBC Universal is facing the same trouble as CC.... They have tried to expand and expand and expand to the point that they have gone broke and are not getting the revenues that one would expect from such an expansion, so now they are in a mode trying to cut expenses. Local TV audiences like seeing their own just as "localism" is important to terrestrial radio. They lose interest when they know that they are being served up with broadcast news and features which are like MRE (Meals rejected by Ethiopians) and will go where they can see and experience the on set personalities they have gotten used to.

This is an open opportunity for the other stations in the market to suckerpunch NBC 7/39 and point out how their stations have local people covering local news and weather conditions...not to mention the ambivalence a lot of San Diegans have towards their northern sister, Los Angeles.
Click to expand...

Point well taken. It's a little different in the Bay Area because KNTV (San Jose COL) has only been the NBC affiliate for a few years. They started out with basement ratings for their news, though things have improved in the last 3 years or so. Re-branding as "NBC Bay Area" has probably helped, too.
 
Newschannel4SF said:
We are somewhat in the same situation up here in Northern California at NBC Bay Area. Pablo Pereira does the weekend weather from the NBC Los Angeles station. What really puzzles me is NBC Bay Area just hired Jeff Ranieri from New York to do the weekday weather. I am wondering if Jeff's roll may very well be expanded to do all of the West Coast weather from the Bay Area?
Click to expand...

I just watched the late Saturday night news (11:00) on NBC Bay Area - the weather was reported by the same weekend meteorologist they've been using for a couple of years now - Rob Mayeda, live and local in KNTV studios.
 
I also watched the NBC Bay Area News at 5, 6 and 11. There appears to be no consistency in their scheduling. One week Pablo has the honor the next week Ralph Mayeda so all we can say is watch, wait and see what happens. There was a story just last week in one of the broadcasting news services that predicted that all of the NBC weather people will soon be a thing of the past.
 
The Problem of Centralising Weather is what happends if there's severe storm or weather related incidents?

You cannot rely on some meterologist some 3,000 miles away.
 
e-dawg said:
The Problem of Centralising Weather is what happends if there's severe storm or weather related incidents?

You cannot rely on some meterologist some 3,000 miles away.
Click to expand...

Why not? Don't get me wrong - I prefer local weather-casters, too...but to play devil's advocate - other than local temps, the vast majority of weather information comes from satellite and doppler. This informatin could be accessed from 10,000 miles away, and the weathercaster could broadcast via satellite link from Mumbai or Baghdad, and it would work just fine.

As far as covering local weather events - bridges washed out by floods, blizzards, etc - the station would just send out its general assignment reporters like they do now.
 
That's true. I think it's a pride thing. San Diegans are very proud of their city and don't want someone from another place acting like they're a part of it when they're really just acting.

I don't know because I didn't watch, is Fritz Coleman transparent about being in LA or are they trying to act like he's actually in the studio off Broadway Circle (SD)?
 
Radio3787 said:
That's true. I think it's a pride thing. San Diegans are very proud of their city and don't want someone from another place acting like they're a part of it when they're really just acting.

I don't know because I didn't watch, is Fritz Coleman transparent about being in LA or are they trying to act like he's actually in the studio off Broadway Circle (SD)?
Click to expand...

Good point. So NBC should just be honest, and Fritz should always note that he's in their "West Coast Weather Center," or whatever they're calling it.

Then he can just say it's 72 degrees at the beaches with early morning fog along the coast burning off by mid morning, and 90 inland, with no rain in the forecast. He'll be correct about 80 percent of the time.

I hate San Diego... ;D
 
Radio3787 said:
That's true. I think it's a pride thing. San Diegans are very proud of their city and don't want someone from another place acting like they're a part of it when they're really just acting.

I don't know because I didn't watch, is Fritz Coleman transparent about being in LA or are they trying to act like he's actually in the studio off Broadway Circle (SD)?
Click to expand...

EXCELLENT POINT!

NBC 7/39 really comes off as a bunch of hypocrites when they tag themselves on air and on their website as "for locals only."

I still think they would be best these days to make NBC 7/39 a translator station for NBC 4 in Los Angeles....then they could really save money. They can maybe keep a skeleton crew for the news department and send up to LA via the Internet stuff for a "San Diego Now" segment on NBC 4's newscasts. ;D
 
I see it as a sign of the times. Affiliates were needed because the FCC capped the number of stations a network could own.

Additionally communication wasn't fast enough.

Now networks seem to be moving to the model of TV stations will be centrally run. Like cable networks TBS, CNN, FX etc.

You just flip a switch and let it run.

I never did see any point to local stations sending their own anchors to major events. I could see it if they covered something unique to the story, but all they do is cover the story exactly the same way.
 
Radio3787 said:
That's true. I think it's a pride thing. San Diegans are very proud of their city and don't want someone from another place acting like they're a part of it when they're really just acting.

I don't know because I didn't watch, is Fritz Coleman transparent about being in LA or are they trying to act like he's actually in the studio off Broadway Circle (SD)?
Click to expand...

I've now watched Fritz Coleman for several days and he's doing a lot of fudging about where he actually is. The tosses from the anchor desk to the saved video from Los Angeles is not smooth and rather awkward, especially when they try to make happy talk to the video. They do a CG of Fritz Coleman as though as he is in San Diego with his name @nbcsandiego.com THe tossbacks are also rather rough even after a week and with top professionals as Marty Levin and Susan Taylor.

What I don't understand is why they don't do the same pretaped thing for sports? Heck, the sports scores don't change, and the coverage is about the Padres right now with no real local sport-interest stories. XETV a couple of months ago offed its entire sports department and doesn't even have a sports segment anymore.

The newscasts compared to KGTV (ABC) and KFMB (CBS) and the other stations really have an overall awkward feel on NBC 7/39.

I'm interested....how important is it to have a local sportscast? Or can one run with a regional sportsfeed? What do you guys think?
 
sdwulfdawg said:
I'm interested....how important is it to have a local sportscast? Or can one run with a regional sportsfeed? What do you guys think?
Click to expand...

The idea of a regional sportsfeed...It could work BUT it depends on the market we are talking about and what kind of sports does that market have and how much of a draw they get.
In some places minor league teams have almost if not the same number of fans as the majors do while in others its almost like "who cares", in those markets a regional sportsfeed would make sense.

The LA stations I would imagine could very easily do a sportsfeed for the Palm Springs stations if they really wanted too and I have my doubts many viewers there ( Palm Springs )would even care.

I wonder how many stations out there who do the regional sportsfeed thing? Right off the bat I can think of one state where that is happening..West Virginia !! That state is made for doing things on a regional basis. In West Virginia, with the exception of Parkersburg you have one company owning one station in all the markets and with the exception of one station all are affiliated with CBS so as result the weather and sports are feed on a regional basis ( out of Huntington ) even though all of the stations still have their own weather and sports staff..they just feed their info to Huntington. For some reason with weather, it seems people in West Virginia DO care what the weather is like in the other parts of that state. Why that is..I wish I knew. Now with sports it gets easier since for starters there really is only one major league market the people there really care about..Pittsburgh ( Washington and Baltimore are tops in the eastern part of that state but they have been "excluded" from the rest of the state for so long it doesn't make a difference, they have access to those local channels ). Add that to the two main universities in the state WVU and Marshall for which both have a massive amount of fans throughout West Virginia and of course there is high school sports..so big in WV that is in not uncommon to see people taking a big interest with a high school that is located hundreds of miles away from them..that state is made for the regional sports ( and weather ) feed.
 
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